


A Short Story of Fear, Pain, and Betrayal

by StoryTellerBoneZone



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:34:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22931860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoryTellerBoneZone/pseuds/StoryTellerBoneZone





	A Short Story of Fear, Pain, and Betrayal

Abandoned. Discarded. Uncared. Unwanted. Forgotten.  
Appreciated.  
Appreciation doesn’t stop the feeling of fear. Appreciation doesn’t stop the feeling of pain. Appreciation doesn’t stop the feeling of betrayal.  
Pin prick needles stab through the leather on my overcoat, through the polyester of my shirt, and through the hair and skin on my arms. It hurts more than it should. Pushing forward through a dark hallway of a newly abandoned sewer plant, the only light being the flash of my friend’s phone as they sprint away.  
The creature behind me, whatever it is, has grabbed me like a praying mantis grabs its prey. I’m yanked backward, something like a cross between piranha teeth pierce through my right shoulder and into my collar bone. A silent scream escapes my mouth in the form of a terrified grasp.  
Something kicks into me. Adrenaline, the will of god, the will to survive, whatever, something forces me to kick forward ripping me from its teeth. I land, ungracefully, onto all fours. My knees are scuffed, I can’t feel my right arm, and blood is gushing from my shoulder. I place my left hand over it and grasp it, as I use my left shoulder to push against the double door. I take a hard left, the opposite direction of the light.  
This was supposed to be a simple affair, really. John and I were supposed to investigate the place. They had just built this sewer plant a few weeks ago, the project taking Montana over two years to make. There was a lot of digging to be sure, a lot of issues with the land deeds, but no one said that there was a monster here.  
Driving here was an adventure but nothing like this. John’s girlfriend had just left him and I wanted to cheer him up. John’s like a little brother to me, what can I say. Maybe I just have a heart of gold. So I take him all over the place, from Atlanta to Montana. I show him the best parts of the world I can show him.  
We had saved a small orphan girl from being alone. We had milkshakes and whiskey all night long, driving drunk for miles until that time we got pulled over. That cop was not amused. Still haven’t paid that court fee. John drew me so many pictures of all of his adventures. Hell, sometime around Ohio he found a bunch of people that weren’t corn folk that he had his own adventures. But there was something that always bothered me about John. He was always upset that he couldn’t do something for me, that everything in our relationship was just me helping him.  
It wasn’t my fault he never tried.  
Oh, but the great adventures. Everyone should think of nice times before they bleed out and die.  
The sound of a sledgehammer hitting against concrete rings in my ears. I naturally duck my head forward and something catches out of the corner of my eye. The creature, pale gray like the moon, with swirls of purple and blue twist inside in some sort of macabre pattern. And there’s my blood too, there’s a lot of my blood.  
I bolt down the hallway, learning my lesson from the last time it got closer. I sprint immediately, no point of hiding right now. My left hand begins to loosen the grip of my slashed artery. I can’t tell if the adrenaline is stopping, the blood loss is getting to me, or if I’m tired. God I am tired.  
I look around me. It’s dark, but the beams from the car light up the hall through a window. There’s a table in the way, coffee mugs still on there, papers, pencils, and even a pocket knife. There’s three sets of doors, a double door that leads outside to my right, an open door that leads to an office, and a closed door to my left.  
I made a quick look behind me and saw some sort of humanoid head, but it’s not human. It’s something else. Seven bloodshot eyes of different colors that seem to be melting together on the bottom side of the face, a jutted jaw with bloodied teeth that makes it look like a mandible, and it’s hair and skin seems to be coming off in gray clumps.  
I suck in labored breaths as I fully slam myself against the double door to escape this place. Twisting, rearing, my body meets only solid steel. I land on my feet and the creature swings it’s mantis like claws at me. It nails my knee cap and I suck in pain. I can feel razor sharp hairs or needle pricks or something more than I can feel the fact that my knee is busted.  
I try to roll backwards, tucking, and backing away. I only manage to hurt my leg.  
Reminds me of some other things that happened on the trip. Like the time that John got caught up in a gas explosion and he was crying for hours. Or maybe like the time that I hurt my leg hurt and a mantis claw tried going for my head.  
I barely duck out the way, snapping out of my barely lucid thoughts, and look to my side. It’s that table. I grab something, hoping for the knife, and grab a pencil. With all the might that a right dominant person can, I stab the creature’s joint with the pencil. It rears backwards, twisting it’s uncountable amount of legs and knocking into the table. The knife falls out. It’s red, spring loaded, and inside the other side of the joint before I had realized that I had pressed the button.  
It rears backwards, and I use it to crawl away as I try to pick myself up.  
The creature roars, something like a wolf screaming into static, and moves forward, limping on one of it’s dozens of legs. I pass by the door to my left and slam it hard behind me, trying to break cover. I think I hit it’s forward wounded leg as I can hear pained sobs.  
The light from outside seems to be getting weaker and weaker as I slide into the office. I slam it behind me and tilt a bookshelf filled with documents, books, and trophies in front of the door.  
I look around for something, anything, and I notice the window. It’s a full moon tonight, casting the sky as a cool purplish blue hue.  
When we got here, just an hour ago when the night was still young and naive, we got out of my sedan. We left the lights on, in case it was dark and someone cut the power. I threw a carpet over the barbed fence and we climbed over the fence. Then we got in. We were lost, this place is built like the minotaur’s labyrinth. Rooms that lead to no where, false doors, doors that lead into the unused section of the sewers. We grabbed a journal from an office, the office that I’m currently scanning the room for ways to escape and I’m only thinking about what happened like 30 minutes ago. Something was here. They dug too deep. They kept pounding on the doors, mechanical cries to let them in. No, that’s now. That wasn’t then.  
So we retraced our steps and tried to enter the sewers. In the newly laid stonework, among a trickle of water, there was an unmarked place on the map. There was black and yellow cautionary tape that read “Save us.” No that’s outside. It read “Caution.” We decided we had none and we went in.   
The window! Of course! I looked at the pocket knife in my hand. Why is my shirt so warm? It’s red too, but started as white.  
I place the blade in between the frame of the window. It’s such a small thing but with all the might of a wounded man with one non dominant arm, I try to work as much leverage into it as I can.  
When we found this thing, feasting itself on a man with two state of the art prosthetic robotic limbs, we booked it. It booked harder. A book! Maybe I can use that. I grab one on the floor, the creature screaming “I’m sorry!” and I slam it into the knife.  
It breaks in half.  
I don’t know why I thought of that. Why is the room spinning?  
When the creature grabbed me, I told John to “Go on! I’ll be fine!” Things are not fine. Things are not fine.  
Oh god am I dying? It bit me? I’m- My blood.  
I’m dying.  
I’m dying.  
I’m going to die.  
It’s so dark. John must have taken the car.  
I’m going to die.  
What’s worse?  
Dying to the monster or dying alone?  
I can’t hear the creature hitting the door anymore.   
The door is still there.   
It’s just spinning.  
It’s getting blurry.  
I’m dying.  
Dying alone.  
Dying.


End file.
